


The Notice

by mommyisageek



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mommyisageek/pseuds/mommyisageek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's supposed to check the names from Canary Wharf.  Routine.  Until one name stops him short.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Notice

He checks the lists after Canary Wharf. As head of the team in Cardiff, it is part of his job. They tell him to confirm losses, check against those Torchwood had listed. Mark sure everything at least reads as copacetic, settled. Make sure no one disappeared or fell through the cracks. All accounted for.

Routine, he thinks.

If he’s honest with himself, the initial check is extremely half-hearted. He knows the familiar names to expect, knows the civilian ones will be foreign and meaningless to him. Line by line, faceless name after faceless name.

Until one name pulls up an all too familiar face and he has to stop. Re-read the name. Twice.

Rose Tyler.

Spunky, blonde, beautiful, and brilliant…his Rose.

“No way,” he says, aloud, checks again, and, sure enough, there she is, listed among the dead.

He’d heard some rumblings within the Institute about Canary Wharf. That He had shown up, TARDIS in tow, blonde companion and all. Rose. Someone, he couldn’t remember who, said enough to convince him Mickey was along, somewhere. But he assumed they got out. He assumed they all disappeared in that box, like always. He wasn’t anywhere on the list and he couldn’t imagine the Doctor ever leaving Rose Tyler behind. Even…

No. Not even then. Surly Rose was more important than he had been.

He was an anomaly. Of that much, he was all too well aware. Surely, had He known Jack was alive he wouldn’t have…

But no, Jack couldn’t be sure of that. She had been his concern. If she was in danger, He would do anything to protect her. Even send her away. Or leave him behind, stranded on that damned satellite.

Jack looks at the paper again – what was this, the fourth? fifth? time? – and the words are still there, black and white: Rose Tyler. And, below it (though he hadn’t noticed before): Jackie Tyler.

Rose…he rolls the name around in his head for a moment. How many times over the years had that beautiful blonde face popped into his head, straight out of World War II or Cardiff or that damned satellite? Rose, with her coy and teasing grin, tongue on her teeth, daring either one of them to challenge her.  
Time travel does odd things to everyone who even dabbles. Everyone Jack ever knew, pretty much, has been dead at some point in his travels. He’s been far enough forward, and way too far back, for the death of someone to really faze him. Even without being able to jump around, he’s outlived generations with this new innate ability to, well…not die.

But this…somehow, this is different.

Thinking it – “Rose is dead” – puts his heart in a cold grip and makes it extremely hard to breathe. He might as well be gulping water.

“Hey, boss.” He hears fast footsteps in the hall, sees Jones coming around the corner, tries to pull himself together. “I was going through this weapons report and…” Jones stops in the doorway. “You alright?”

Jack can suddenly feel the pull of wetness on his cheek – God, when had he started crying? – and brushes at it with the back of his hand. “Just fine, Jones. Pages of names. Makes you cross-eyed quickly.” Jones nods. “Weapons report?”

“If you wouldn’t mind reviewing it when you have a mo. I marked my concerns.”

“Of course.” Jones drops the report on the desk and with just a moment’s pause, leaves the room.

Jack laughs lowly for a moment. Captain Jack Harkness. Whoever would have thought he might be human?

Somehow, finding Him, finding the Doctor, becomes, in that moment, all the more important. He has to know. Has to know what happened to one of the most amazing women he ever knew.

He might not want to see him, but Jack is certain that the Doctor would not deny him the truth about Rose.

Because, one way or another, he had loved her. They both had.

He pulls a bottle from his desk. Now that he’s admitted that, he is determined to forget it again.


End file.
